The present application relates to the field of imaging, and in particular to imaging modalities that produce images utilizing radiation technology (e.g., at times referred to as radiation imaging modalities or systems). It finds particular application with medical, security, and/or other applications where obtaining information about physical properties (e.g., density, effective atomic number, etc.) of an object under examination may be useful.
Computed tomography (CT) systems and other radiation imaging modalities (e.g., single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), mammography, digital radiography, etc.) are useful to provide information, or images, of interior aspects of an object under examination. Generally, the object is exposed to radiation photons (e.g., such as X-rays, gamma rays, etc.), and an image(s) is formed based upon the radiation absorbed and/or attenuated by the interior aspects of the object, or rather an amount of photons that is able to pass through the object. Traditionally, the image(s) that is formed from the radiation exposure is a density image or attenuation image, meaning the image is colored/shaded as a function of the respective densities of sub-objects comprised within the object under examination. For example, highly dense sub-objects absorb and/or attenuate more radiation than less dense sub-objects, and thus a sub-object having a higher density, such as a bone or metal, for example, will be shaded differently than less dense sub-objects, such as muscle or clothing.
While such imaging systems have proven successful, in some applications imaging based upon more than density may be advantageous. For example, in security applications, certain threat items can be disguised amongst clothing or other non-threat items that have similar densities to the threat items. Thus, in some applications, such as airport security, it may be useful to determine other and/or additional physical properties of the item under examination, such as, for example, effective atomic number (e.g., at times referred to as z-effective). In this way, it may be possible to discern threat items that have densities similar to non-threat items, but different atomic numbers, for example.
As early as 1992, multi-energy imaging modalities have been deployed in some environments, such as airport and military establishments, to provide additional information about an object under examination, such as an object's effective atomic number(s). These modalities have provided improved detection and/or false alarm performance when tasked to differentiate between sub-objects, relative to systems that merely differentiate sub-objects based upon density.
Multi-energy imaging modalities operate by using multiple, distinct radiation photon energy spectra to reconstruct an image(s) of an object. Such distinct radiation energy spectra can be measured using numerous techniques. For example, multi-energy measurements can be performed using energy resolving detectors (e.g., where the detectors are configured to selectively detect radiation having an energy within a first radiation energy spectrum as well as radiation having an energy within a second radiation energy spectrum), two radiation sources (e.g., respectively emitting radiation at a different energy level/spectrum), and/or by varying the voltage applied to a radiation source (e.g., such that the energy of emitted radiation varies as the applied voltage varies). It may be appreciated that the additional hardware requirements for a multi-energy imaging modality may add significant cost and/or weight to the system, often causing multi-energy imaging modalities to be significantly more expensive and/or difficult to implement than similarly designed single-energy imaging modalities.